broncovet

Berta I am convinced that the VA has absolutely no intention of "speeding up" the claims process, and, instead plans of "farting around" with as many claims as is possible because there is incentive for the VA to do exactly that. Berta, you probably know that when you buy a home, you pay MORE for the interest, than you do for the home. This is a well known fact, and it is easy to break it down with your house payment..the interest on the loan is MUCH more than the principal. If your payment is $800 per month, and you have only owned your home for a few years or months, then your principal will only be about $50 or so and the vast majority goes to interest on the loan. (The exception is if you are in the top 5% or so of people who pay all cash for their home). In a similar way, the VA knows that if they delay the Veterans payment, the VA keeps the interest on the money as the laws wont allow Veterans to be paid interest on retro..in fact the retro should be paid at the most current year rate, but it is not. 5 year old retro is paid at the rate it was 5 years ago..not todays rate. By delaying millions of Veterans claims for years, the VA can pay that claim much later, with inflated dollars, on a budget that will probably increase each year. There is simply no incentive for the Va to get your claim "out" promptly, but rather an incentive for them to delay it as long as possible. As long as that built in "delay incentive" exists, the VA will continue to delay claims for years whenever possible. You and I can not do that. If we wait to pay our electric bill, it will be cut off and if we want another electric service, we are going to have to not only pay that "old" bill, but we are going to have to pay interest/late charges on it also. Ditto with all of our other bills. Years ago, you didnt have to pay interest on your doctor bills, but that has long since been done away with. If you owe money to the doctor/hospital you are going to be charged interest. People think that interest is "no big deal"..that it is just a few pennies per dollar..but that is because they can not comprehend compound interest. An example that someone figured out is that America purchased Manhatted Island some 200 and some years ago from the indians for about $25 dollars worth of beads. Well, someone figured out that if you put that $25 dollars in an interest bearing account at about 8% interest for something like 212 years, you could actually purchase the Manhatten Island TODAY. That is, the interest on 25 dollars compounded for 212 years amounts to BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars. One way to figure it out is to use "the rule of 72". This rule says you divide the interest rate into the number 72 to find out how many years it takes to double. So if the interst rate is 8% dividing that into the magic 72 means your money doubles each 9 years. By using the "rule of 72" often used by insurance agents/financial planners/ other mathematical experts, because it works, that means the original 25 dollars would have doubled about 23.5 times. (212years divided by 9years (the time it takes to double using the formula at 8%) = 23.55 times. This means you take $25 times 2 times 2 times 2....for 23 times. Or, 25 raised to the 23rd power.

A good point has been brought up. The VA discriminates between Veterans with a physical disability and those with a mental disability. Max Cleland and Tami Duckworth are examples. I am pretty sure both of these are 100% disabled Veterans and working..Tami is a big shot with the VA. The are both multiple amputees. Somehow, if an amputee is able to work by overcoming their disabilities, (s)he is a hero but if a mentally disabled person is able to work by overcome his disabilities, (s)he is a fraud. This is a terrible discriminatory practice by the VA. Since many people are "mixed", that is, have both physical and mental disabilities, are they frauds or heroes when they are able to over come and work? I am not sure this has been tested in court. The VA also discriminates against the hard of hearing. Hearing doctors, nurses, and C and P examiners rarely really understand what it is like to be hard of hearing in a hearing world. The rating system is extremely biased against the hard of hearing. You not only need to be wearing hearing aids, but you practically have to have a sign interpreter to be able to get a 10% hearing loss..everything else is zero percent. All through grade school, high school and college we are taught how important communication is. Some colleges or even high schools require a foreign language, and all require several years of English. You dont pass English, and you dont get a degree is pretty much universal. Then, you go serve your country, and loose your ability to communicate, and the VA "decides" that is worth 0%. I was rated at zero percent and can not go to the movies...movies pretty much universally do not have close captions and I can not watch them as they may as well be speaking Chinese, as I simply dont understand much of what they say. Worse, when we talk to people, there is no close captioning, and frankly people not only tire of repeating themselves, but often refuse and even insult the hard of hearing by saying, "I wasnt talking to you," or "Nevermind what I said". It is pretty insulting when you lost your hearing serving our country and people wont so much as even spend 30 seconds to repeat what they said in honor to a disabled Veterans who has lost their hearing serving our country. The VA insists that I list my phone number..insists that I call and make an appointment. A telephone is pretty much useless to me except as a device I use to hook up to the internet..yes I can hear part of what is said, but it is an unacceptable communication device for me..I much prefer email. However, email addresses of Va employees, doctors, nurses, etc are pretty much never available to me while phone numbers are. I guess they are worried about spam, but it is not like we never get "spam" phone calls..they are just called telephone solicitors as opposed to email solicitors (spam).

Thanks Berta and Allan. Jay: I will try to restate what has been said in this post. THE PROBLEM: The Veteran gets denied benefits by the RO, often because the RO never read all the medical evidence. The Veteran appeals, and the BVA "remands" (sends it back to the Regional Office). The RO again fails to read the evidence, and issues a new decision denying the case AGAIN. The Vet appeals again, and this goes on, sometimes for 10 years. The Board of Veterans Appeals understands the Veterans dilema, but there is some law the RO has to have a chance at adjucitang the claim..the BVA cant just decide it for them UNLESS The Vetran signs a "waiver". The Veterans claim winds up on a "hampster wheel", that is it just keeps going round and round in circles and never gets anywhere, sometimes for 30 or more years. Denial, Appeal, Remand, Denial, Appeal, Remand...and on, and on. and on. SOLUTION: The Veteran signs a waiver, and the BVA can now decide the case and Veteran gets his benefits at long last. Bottom Line: Sign the waiver and send it in or the RO will jerk you around forever.

Good one John. My VARO's "black hole" where documents were sucked in has even spread to the VA Central Office, when the manager at Cleveland, was promoted there shortly after her Regional Office made the "dirty dozen"..the worst of the worst Regional Offices. Cleveland, Detroit, St. Pete, and Waco are "the worst of the worst". So, what does the Va DO about it? Well, they promote the manager, of course! Here it is, in case you missed it earlier: http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfdec08/nf120408-1.htm

Pete992 I think the answer to your question is "YES". That is, I think a Veteran can apply for an increase at ANY time, Remand or NO Remand, and that would establish an effective date for that increase. In addition, you may have already applied for an increase, according to M21-1MR PartIII Subpar ii Ch2 Sec D, if you have told your VA doctor about your condition. The regulations say that the VA must "Liberally interpret reasonable probability of a valid claim" as shown below: 18. Claims Based on Reports of Examination or Hospitalization, Continued d. Establishing a Claim Per 38 CFR 3.400(o), the effective date of an increase in compensation can be the earliest date on which the evidence shows that an increase in disability has occurred, if a claim is received within one year of this date. Follow the steps in the table below if the VA medical evidence shows treatment for · an SC disability, or · manifestations of the SC disability. Step Action 1 Accept the date of admission for treatment for an SC disability as the date of claim for increased evaluation. 2 Establish and maintain control of the claim. e. Accepting Evidence Follow the steps in the table below to accept evidence for a claim that · specifies the benefit sought, and · is received within one year of treatment. Step Action 1 Accept evidence of examination or hospitalization at a VA or uniformed services health care facility as an informal claim. 2 Liberally interpret reasonable probability of a valid claim. 3 If there is the probability of a valid claim, refer the claim for development. 4 Establish and maintain control of the claim.

Test.. In a word, Yes..you deserve both the housing allowance and the Auto. File a NOD, and cite this letter. I cant see why they turned you down based on this letter other than general VA stinginess.

Berta... I am guessing here, but that sounds like grounds for a CUE, here. That is, If you submit evidence, and the VA never puts that evidence in the evidence list, then that would imply that they never considered your evidence, and the VA is required to consider ALL the evidence..not just the unfavorable evidence, but the favorable evidence as well. Do you have thoughts on this?

jayq.. The "list of evidence" only applies to VA RO decisions, and only helps in an appeal. WE arent given a "list of evidence" until after our claim is denied or lowballed. I do think you have something there, tho. The VA should have to supply us with a list of evidence before they make a decision. That way we can know how much they shredded before the final decision. It would save a lot of appeals. "The Veterans service record is negative for....." when we know that is bunkum.

Vets Lady I missed the "Medicare Madoff's" you were talking about. I bet if the new national health care plan goes through, you will be seeing a lot more "Medicare Madoff Billionaires" who rip off taxpayers. This is what the new health care plan is about, it isnt about helping poor people get insurance.

Berta and 123... Thanks for the compliments. I do try to give Vets good advice, and mainly to not believe the VA. They try to make you believe they will consider all your evidence, and they will follow all regulations (bunkum) and you will have your check in 6 months (double bunkum). The fact is they will shred anything they can get away with, violate the regulations when it serves their interests (without penalty) and delay your claim as long as possible while telling you they are not your adversary in order to lull you into believing you can send the VA evidence without keeping copies and sending it certified mail return receipt requested. Berta, when you quoted my "loopholes to loopholes", it was a real compliment. We know the Va will weasel out of paying applying their loopholes. WE have to find loopholes to their loopholes, and nail em on the technicalities.

I received a card that says, "This acknowledges receipt of your recent FOIA-Privacy Act request and to inform you of the decision to grant to you access to the requeste records if found, and not exempted from disclosure by law. Any releasable sections of the requested records shall be provide to you after deletion of the parts that are exempt. You may expect to receive a response as promptly as possible. Our statewide telephone number is 1-800-827-1000 Sincerly yours FOIA Privact Act Officer" It comes from the Regional Office. Translation: We are sending you useless parts of your C file that we forgot to shred, that will not help you win your claim, because we can. That is which part of MY Military, VA records, or C file, should I not be "entltled to" for purposes of national security?

Dont count on getting a job because you have VA preference. It is a "teethless" law, that everyone ignores. No one pays any attention to it. Non Vets are hired every day when qualified Vets also apply. If the Vet complains, it is pretty easy for the offender..it will be the Veteran who has to prove his case. If the Veteran has a Phd, and they hire a non Vet with a high school education, they will say that education has nothing to do with it..they hire on experience. Conversely, if they hire a non Vet with zero expericene when a Vet has 20 years experience, they will say that the non Vet went through eleven years of schooling while the Vet dropped out of high school with 10.5 years. Its a loose-loose situation for Vets..the only one that gets out of this law is the politicians put it on their resume of how they helped Vets.

James No offense to you personally, but this is often our complaint with the VA. The court case is decided, and regulations are changed. No one bothers to tell the employees about the change, so they keep right on doing it the "old" (now illegal) way. They do that because they can. There is no penalty to the VA employee manager for violating any rules, the Veteran must pay the penalty through additional delays. In this instance, a Veteran who is owed a big retro, $250,000 each day delay costs the Veteran $27.39. That is if the Veteran put his money out at a modest 4% interest, it would earn $10,000 per year, or $27.39 per day. Each month of delay cheats the Veteran out of $833. Remember, if the Veteran cant pay his copayments he is charged interest by the VA, and almost every one else also charges him interest also when he cant pay, and, of course, he cant when the VA holds onto his retro while they "accuracy check" it. I have said this before, this "accuracy check" ONLY on large retros does not prevent fraud, it makes another loophole for fraud. It is pretty easy to not get caught by only doing fraud that amounts to less than the minimum, that is, if they only accuracy check 250k cases, then the frauds will do $200k frauds that will escape detection. If the VA did not pay your salary for 8 years, due to "paperwork snafus" and you were loyal enough to keep working for them those 8 years, while watching your home, and possessions be pawned so you could survive, would you want to be investigated when you finally collected your money that you were owed all those years?

Larry, Berta, sixthcents.. Thanks for sticking up for me. You are right Berta, I tell it like it is, and lots of people do not want to hear that. If they just applied for benefits, they want to believe the VA that they will have their benefit check in 6 months, when we know that is VA'ola Crapola. The fact is that of people who apply for benefits, LESS than 50% will be approved in 6 months, and MORE than 50% will have to appeal, and appeals to the BVA take about 2 years and THEN they send it back to the Regional Office for "processing". So, the bottom line is greater than 50% of people who apply for VA benefits takes more than 2 years to receive their first check. ONLY a minority (less than 50%) receive their first VA benefit check within 6 months. I would venture a guess that LESS than 25% of Veterans disability compensation claims RECEIVE their money in 6 months or less. The VA's "average" includes mostly denied claims which skews the numbers. Wit the steady diet of VA'ola Crapola that the VA feeds Veterans, it is no wonder why Vets are in such poor health.

John When you use B/C does the VA pickup the deductible/copays? If they do, I might get health insurance so I can get some decent health care, as you sure dont get it at the VA. By the way, I saw your goldfish at the VA the other day, due to cutbacks they were served in the cafeteria.

Sorry, but I am just not real impressed. On one side of his mouth, he talks about helping Veterans for their service, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah, then he says in another sentence that Veterans are getting zero Cola...The VA gets a huge raise, and none of this gets passed to Vetrans. Also, what happened to his $250 promise for Veterans..did that just Die...or was that all lip service also. We Vets have heard all these promises before, and I am waiting to see some delivery on promises. So far, this administration has gone backwards on the claim backlog...and the VA thought up a new way of measuring the backlog to try to make that go away. There really has also been no actual positive results on Veterans suicide. I think the backlog and suicide are related...people doing very well financially are much less apt to commit suicide than those in the economic stress, such as loosing their home. Finally, when Obama was a Senator, he vowed to help end the dispartiy between Regional offices...that is, frankly, many RO's are chintzier with benefit approval than other RO's, with most of the midwest states at or near the bottom. Illionois was near the bottom, and Obama did raise a stink about that when he was senator, and there was some improvement, with Illinois moving up a few states off the bottom. However, now that he is president, he does not seem concerned any more that Veterans is some states are being unfairly treated by their Regional Offices. As far as I am aware, he has not given Shinseki any public direction to help resolve this unfairness between awarding VA benefits in many states. These things make this advance funding ring rather hollow in my ears...JMHO.

Judy.. Doug Rosinski is probably a pretty good lawyer, but he is "skimming the cream", in part because he won a multi million dollar case for Vets (class action) about a year ago and because he CAN. I think he is looking for the "easy money" cases that are a slam dunk with large attorney fees. He just doesnt want to work cases where the fees arent as high, and he has to do a lot of work to win. So, dont be discouraged just because he turned your case down. Another lawyer could look at this in another light, and say, "Gee..this is easy money..all I have to do is... and the judge will have to decide in my clients favor." If it werent for people disagreeing, there would be no need for lawyers! Bottom line: get another lawyer.

If you dont have the Cfile, and complete medical records, as well as a copy of the original rating decision, you are shooting in the dark. You should obtain those now. I think your best shot is a to 1)Thoroughly go through the SMR, looking for evidence of hearing loss. Also look at the original rating decision, especially reasons for decision. Dont guess..check the records. Also, check your medical records and look for any reference to any medical exam where he said anything about hearing loss. That can be a claim for increase, and an increase, imho, is a claim for SC when you have been denied, tho you may have to try to prove that. Then, Go ahead and file a NOD on the most recent decision, requesting an EED. 2) File a Cue on the earlier decision, using the regulations, as well as the medical evidence as a basis for both your CUE and NOD. It is clear to me the Veteran filed for hearing loss many years ago, and the VA is "weaseling out" of paying, hiding behind the 1 year finality of decision, and the difficulty of proving CUE. Dont let em do it. Nail em on the technicalties, like they are doing to you. Find your loophole to their loophole is what it amounts to.

The problem with the VBM is that it is expensive enough, that usually the ones that need the knowledge the most, can afford it the least. The VA knows this, and uses their staff of hundreds of lawyers against us. They know most Vets dont appeal, so they throw anything in the decisions knowing, even if it is overturned on appeal, its no skin off their nose. They get away with literally raping Veterans on these decisions...making them go through years and years of hardship and appeal after appeal, after appeal to get the benefits the Veteran deserves. I personally lost my home because of this Va policy.

No offense here, but from my viewpoint I dont give a rip about the insurance company's bottom line, so I could care less who pays..the insurance company or the VA. I say we let VA Executives and Insurance company executives, who get all those big bonuses, worry about their bonus money and their bottom line. You worry about getting well, and let the insurance companies and the VA duke out who pays. As long as you arent the payer, why should you give a rip? That "double insurance" could be a big benefit to you. Example: you need a treatment that the Va does not provide, so you obtain it privately. Go ahead and use your insurance..and let the insurance company try to get their duductable from the Va..

John.. Of course I am no legal expert, but I agree with you that document mis- handling all by itself is Clear, Unmistakable Error. That is, if VA regulations are so flawed that its ok for VA employees to simply throw away VEterans evidence and then deny the claim based on lack of evidence, then, well that is an out and out admission that the VA is controlled by the mafia. If you do look at cases, the VA is required to consider all the evidence, and why would that exclude Veterans evidence shredded by an unscrupulous VA employee/manager? If I hear about a judge who decides that evidence shredded/mishandled by a VA employee/manager is somehow the Veterans fault, and rules against the VEt, I dont know about you but I am going to get signs and picket for that so called "judge" to be immediately terminated. A few weeks ago someone on this board said something about doing a search at the BVA or CAVC using something like "document mishandling" as a keyword and came up with literaly hundreds of cases. According to VA watchdog, 41 out of 57 Regional offices had Veterans evidence inappropriately placed in the shredder bin. The bad news is this just covers ONE DAY..when the inspectors were there. How many RO's got wind of this inspection and fixed the problem before inspectors got there? How many THOUSANDS of Veterans had evidence shredded over many years, and had their claims denied? How many of these Veteran victims are homeless, or worse, committed suicide out of economic desperation? The problem is so widespread, and has been occuring for decades, that I am thinking practically all of the denied claims deserved to be immediately approved because the VAOIG is basically saying that most RO's violated the law by doing this. Why must the Veteran pay the penalty when the VA violates the law? According to this article, an 89 year old Veteran died while waiting on the VA to appeal his case, so he never will get his benefits, and his family wont either. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/6683477.html

Congratulations! It doesnt sound like your claim was proceesed all that quickly if you had enough retro to buy a house and a car..that sounds like at least a couple years or more to me.

I am ticked that there is a charge for the VBM. This means that the people most likely to need it (Disabled Veterans waiting on the VA to process their claim) are the least likely to be able to afford it. I really dont know who's fault it is, but if Lexis Nexis is listening, I think they should publish that for free to Veterans, or anyone helping a Vet. If DAV, VA, VFW, etc. etc. really want to help Veterans, they should publish it electronically for free.

Jayq... Each decision must list the evidence it considers when deciding your claim. Look at that and see, for example, if your IMO's are on the evidence list. If they are not on the evidence list, that means that your IMO's...even tho they were in your file, were not considered. Its called "document mishandling"...it can be anything from simply overlooking a document in a pile...or it could have been misplaced, shredded, or lost and then returned. Check that evidence list carefully, and compare and check off each piece of evidence to make sure you were not a victim of document mishandling. It is a very, very huge problem at the VA, even when those documents were not shredded..they need only be "gone" for just a few minutes to result in a bad decision for you.

Navydoc... I am not accusing you or any other Veteran of submitting bogus claims..heck I have never met you and have no idea. As far as I am concerned, any Veteran should be awarded benefits upon his word and only if he has proven to be a liar, should they be taken away. That is, innocent until proven guilty applies to Vetrans above and beyond others. We Vets have fought for criminals to have the right to be innocent until proven guilty, so why does the VA take the position that all Veterans are guilty of asking for fraudulent benefits until they can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are innocent. We Vets must prove every stressor, everything..before he gets a dime, while anyone can file a tax return and get money in a few weeks and only then will the IRS check to see if there might be fraud involved..after they send the money. Veterans, however, who have already proven their loyalty, must spend years trying to get buddy statements, Independent medical opinions, and the like to prove things that it later turned out some employee was the one who shredded the evidence in the first place. Veterans are far more trustworthy than government paper pushers. We gave much more for our country than most of them did, (VA employees who are also Veterans excepted, of course)